Summer of Night (63 page)

"Stay in your rooms!" he screamed and jumped onto the lawn.

The Soldier had wrestled the screen out of its frame and was leaning into the lighted window, his fingers scrabbling on wood.

Mike ran forward and squirted the last of the holy water onto the back of its neck.

The thing did not scream. A smell worse than the burning Rendering Truck rose from it and it flung itself into the loose soil of the flower bed under the window, scrabbling and kicking its way through the shrubbery into the darkness.

Mike turned just as the Father Cavanaugh figure leapt from the porch and reached for him. Mike ducked under the long arms, dropped the empty squirt gun into the bushes, and reached for Memo's small jewel case on the sill.

Peg was visible through the billowing curtains, standing by the doorway of Memo's room, hands to her mouth." "Mike, what…"

Father Cavanaugh's long fingers closed on Mike's shoulders and jerked him back out of the light, into the darkness under the linden tree. The tall priest-form hugged Mike closer.

Mike smelled the stench in his face, saw the face cracked now with acid-chewed scars, sensed things writhing under that flesh and in the long tunnel of the proboscis, and then Father C. leaned forward, the cartilage of its snout pulsating above Mike's face.

He had no time to look. Mike opened the case, lifted the large piece of consecrated Host out, and thrust it against the obscene opening in the thing's face just as the pressure of the slugs inside it threatened to burst forth.

Mike had watched once as C. J. Congden had fired a 12-gauge shotgun at a full watermelon on a post only eight feet away…

This was worse.

The Father Cavanaugh-thing's snout and face seemed to explode sideways with chunks of pasty white flesh bouncing off the house and pattering on the linden leaves. There was a scream, audibly from the figure's belly this time, and Mike dropped the Host as the thing staggered backward, fingers to what was left of its face now.

Mike jumped back as he saw six-inch brown slugs curling and writhing in the grass as the Host seemed to glow from some blue-green radiance of its own. Fragments of Father Cavanaugh's flesh hissed and deliquesced like snails caught out of their shells in a rain of salt.

Peg was screaming from the bedroom. Mike staggered to the porch, saw his mother come to the door-her eyes racked with the pain of the migraine and the washcloth still raised to her temples-and both of them watched as the shadow of Father Cavanaugh staggered onto First Avenue, hands still over its ruined face, a terrible noise like a boiler rushing toward explosion rising out of it.

"Mike, what…" his mother said through her pain, blinking to see clearly, just as the headlights caught the figure staggering out from under the linden tree.

The cars barely slowed when they came into town on First Avenue, despite the sign a hundred feet up the road that posted the speed limit at thirty-five. Most of the cars continued at forty-five or fifty miles per hour until they reached the Hard Road three blocks south. This pickup must have been doing sixty, perhaps more.

Father C. staggered directly into its path, the tall figure bent almost double in pain, hands over its face. It removed its hands in the last second of squealing brakes.

The grille of the pickup caught the priest full in the face, the body disappeared under the truck but was dragged another hundred and thirty feet, Peg screamed from inside the house, and Mike's mother put her arms around her son as if protecting him from the sight.

By the time he and his mother walked out to see what had happened, the Somersets and Millers and Meyerses had already come out of their homes, Barney's rarely used siren was screaming a block or two away and rapidly approaching, and the driver of the pickup was on his knees on the pavement, covering his own face with his hands as he stared under the truck at what was left of the priest and muttering over and over, "I didn't see him… he just rushed out."

Through the cloud of shock and terror that had dulled Mike's senses, he slowly recognized the driver. It was Mr. McBride, Duane's dad. The man was sobbing and leaning on the running board of his pickup.

Mike turned away from the murmuring crowd, walking back toward the house as he bit hard on the fleshy part of his hand below the thumb. He was afraid that if he let up on the pressure he would start to laugh or cry, and he was not sure if he would be able to stop.

THIRTY-FIVE

Saturday the sixteenth of July was as dark a day as there can be in Illinois in midsummer. In Oak Hill, where the streetlights were controlled by photoelectric sensors, the lights went off at five-thirty a.m. and flickered back on at seven-fifteen a.m. The dark clouds seemed to move in above the treetops and hang there. In Elm Haven, the few streetlights were switched on and off by an old electrical timer in the annex next to the bank, and no one thought to turn them back on when the day grew darker rather than lighter.

Mr. Meyers opened his dry goods store on Main Street at precisely nine a.m. and was surprised to find four boys-the Stewart kids, Ken Grumbacher's boy Kevin, and another boy in a sling-waiting to buy squirt guns. Three apiece. The boys deliberated for several minutes, taking care to choose the most reliable guns and the ones with the largest water reservoirs. Mr. Meyers thought it odd… but he thought most things in this brave new world of 1960 odd. Things made more sense when he had opened the store baek in the twenties, when trains came through every day and people knew how to behave like civilized human beings.

The boys were gone by nine-thirty, keeping their newly purchased squirt guns in sacks and riding off with not a word of good-bye. Mr. Meyers shouted at them not to park their bikes on the sidewalk, that it was a hazard to pedestrians and against the city ordinances to boot, but the boys were gone, out of sight up Broad Avenue.

Mr. Meyers went back to taking inventory of dusty things on the high old shelves, occasionally looking out across the street and above the park to frown at the dark clouds. When he took his coffee break at the Parkside an hour later, old-timers in the back booth were talking about tornadoes.

Mike was questioned several times on Saturday: by Barney, by the county sheriff, and even by the Highway Patrol, who sent two troopers in a long brown car.

The sixth grader tried to imagine the puzzle that the sheriff and Barney were trying to assemble-Duane McBride and his uncle dying under mysterious circumstances, Mrs. Moon dying of natural causes but her precious cats being slaughtered, the body of the justice of the peace being found charred almost-but not quite-beyond recognition in the grain elevator, his throat cut according to the county coroner, while the body of Congden's friend Karl Van Syke-charred beyond immediate recognition but identified by his front gold tooth-was pulled out of the cab of the scorched Rendering Truck owned by Van Syke and Congden. The body of an unidentified dog was also discovered in the truck.

Town gossips were already piecing together motives for the murder; Congden and Van Syke sharing ill-gained profits from the justice of the peace's various scams, a falling-out between partners in crime, a brutal murder, then an accident with the gasoline that Van Syke had obviously used to douse the elevator before torching it, the fleeing man too frightened to abandon his burning truck for fear of being caught at the scene, the exploding gas tank…

By noon on Saturday, the locals had explained everything but the dead dog… Van Syke hated dogs, and no one had ever seen him allow one near him, much less in his truck.

Then Mrs. Whittaker at Betty's Beauty Salon on Church Street came up with the obvious deduction-J. P. Congden's large watchdog had disappeared some weeks earlier. Obviously that no-good Karl Van Syke had stolen it, or dognapped it, and the ownership of the dog was part of the dispute that led to the grisly murder.

Elm Haven had not had a real murder for decades. The townsfolk were shocked and delighted-especially delighted now that the obvious culprit behind the slaughter of Mrs. Moon's cats had been found.

How Father Cavanaugh's accidental death figured into this was not quite as certain. Mrs. McCafferty told Mrs. Somerset who called Mrs. Sperling with the information that the priest always had been a bit unstable, making fun of his own vocation, even calling the diocese vehicle on loan from Oak Hill Lincoln-Mercury the "Popemobile," according to Mrs. Mee-han, who helped with all the church functions. Mrs. Maher at the Lutheran Ladies' Auxiliary told Mrs. Meehan at the Methodist Bazaar that Father Cavanaugh had a history of insanity in his family-he was Scotch-Irish and everyone knew what that meant, and it had been common knowledge that the young priest had been transferred from a large diocese in Chicago as punishment for some bizarre act there.

Now everyone knew what the bizarre acts included: being a Peeping Tom, trying to break into people's houses, and probably killing cats as some sort of dark Catholic ritual. Mrs. Whittaker told Mrs. Staffney, who confirmed it with Mrs. Taylor that Catholics used dead cats in certain secret rituals. Mrs. Taylor said that her husband had told her that the young priest's face had been 'crushed and peeled," his words, by the sharp grille of Mr. McBride's pickup truck. Mr. Taylor had pronounced Father Cavanaugh as 'perhaps the deadest on arrival dead-on-arrival' that he had had the solemn duty to prepare. The archdiocese bishop called early Saturday morning from St. Mary's in Peoria and told Mr. Taylor not to prepare the body for anything except shipment on Monday to Chicago, where the family would claim it. Mr. Taylor agreed, but added cosmetology to his bill at any rate, since 'the family can't see him like this… it's as if something had exploded outward from his face." Again, Mr. Taylor's words, to quote Mrs. Taylor to Mrs. Whittaker.

One way or the other, however, the people were sure that the mystery had been solved. Mr. Van Syke, whom, it turned out, no one in town had trusted very much, murdering poor old Justice of the Peace Congden over money or a dog. Poor Father Cavanaugh, whom, it turned out, all of the Protestants and not a few of the older Catholics had never considered that stable, had gone out of his mind with a congenital fever and had tried to attack his altar boy Michael O'Rourke before running in front of a truck.

The townspeople clucked and the phone lines hummed-Jenny at the county switchboard hadn't counted so many calls coming out of Elm Haven since the flood in '49-and everyone had a good time solving things while they kept one eye on the dark clouds that continued to build over the cornfields to the south and west.

The sheriff wasn't so easily convinced that things were solved. After lunch he came back for the third interview with Mike since the night before.

"And Father Cavanaugh spoke to your sister?" "Yessir. She told me that Father C. wanted to talk to me… that it was important." Mike knew that the tall sheriff had spoken to Peg twice before also.

"Did he tell her what he wanted to speak to you about?" "No, sir. I don't think so. You'll have to ask her." "Mmmm," said the sheriff, looking at a small spiral notebook that made Mike think of Duane's notebooks. "Tell me again what he did talk to you about."

"Well, sir, as I said before, I couldn't really understand him. It was like when a person's talking in a fever. There were words and phrases that seemed to make sense, but it didn't all go together."

"Tell me some of the words, son." Mike chewed his lip. Duane McBride had once told him and Dale that most criminals screw up their lies and alibis because they talk too much, feel too much need to embroider facts. Innocent people, said Duane, are usually a lot less articulate. Mike had had to go home and look up the word 'articulate' after that conversation.

"Well, sir," said Mike slowly, "I know he used the word sin several times. He said we'd all sinned and had to be punished. But I had the feeling he wasn't really talking about us… just people in general."

The sheriff nodded and made a note. "And that's when he started shouting?"

"Yessir. About then."

"But your sister says that he heard both of your voices. If you didn't understand what the father was saying, why were you talking?"

Mike resisted the impulse to rub sweat off his upper lip. "I guess I was asking him if he was OK. I mean, the last time I saw Father C. was when Mrs. McCafferty let me in to see him on Tuesday. He was really sick then."

"And did he say he was all right?"

"No, sir, he just started shouting that the Judgment Day was nigh… that was his word, sir, nigh."

"And then he ran off the porch and started attacking your grandmother's window," said the sheriff, checking his notes. "Is that right?"

"Yessir."

The sheriff scratched his cheek slowly, obviously not satisfied with something. "And what about his face, son?”His face, sir?" This was a new question.

"Yes. Was it… strange? Lacerated or distorted in any way?"

Not if you don't call turning itself into a sort of lamprey snout distorted, thought Mike. He said, "No, sir. I don't think so. He was pale. But it was pretty dark."

"But you didn't see any scars or lesions?"

"What are lesions, sir?"

"Like deep scratches? Or open sores?"

"No, sir."

The sheriff sighed and reached into a small gym bag. "Is this yours, son?" He held the wafer pistol.

Mike's first inclination was to deny it. "Yessir," he said.

The sheriff nodded. "Your sister said it was. Aren't you a little old to be playing with squirt guns?"

Mike shrugged and allowed himself to look embarrassed.

"Did you have this out on the porch last night? When Father Cavanaugh was visiting?"

"No," said Mike.

"You're sure?"

"Yessir."

"We found it below the window," said the sheriff. He pushed his hat back on his head and smiled for the first time during the interview. "It shows how paranoid I'm getting in my old age… I had the police lab up at Oak Hill actually analyze the contents. Water. Just water." Mike returned the big man's smile. "Here, son. Here's your toy back. Is there anything else you can tell me that could help? Where this came from, for instance?" He held up the Soldier's campaign hat.

"No, sir. Maybe it was in the bushes. Father C. had it on when he pulled the screen off."

“And it's the same hat you saw when you reported a soldier as a Peeping Tom a few weeks ago?" "I guess so, sir. I don't know." "But it's the same style of hat?" "Yessir."

"But you didn't recognize this soldier as your priest the other times you saw him out on the lawn?" The sheriff watched Mike very carefully.

Mike thought a minute, just as he had the last couple of times he'd been asked this. "No, sir," he said at last. "Before I would've said it wasn't Father Cavanaugh… he seemed smaller the first time I saw him… but it was dark, and I was looking through the curtains." Mike made a confused gesture with his hands. "Sorry, sir."

The tall man unlimbered from where he sat on the couch, touched Mike's shoulder with one large hand, and said, "That's all right, son. Thank you for your help. I'm sorry you had to see that last night. We may never know what was wrong with that gentleman… your Father Cavanaugh, I mean… but I doubt that he meant to do what he did. Whether it was the fever his doctors were talking about or whatever, I don't think the gentleman was in his right mind." "I don't either, sir," said Mike, walking the sheriff to the door. Mike's father and mother were waiting on the porch. All three of them waved as the sheriff's car moved away slowly down First.

"Let's do it this afternoon," Harlen said in the treehouse an hour later. All of them were there… all except Cordie Cooke. Harlen and Dale had gone out to the dump just after breakfast to find her, but there was no sign except for some ratty blankets in a shattered lean-to near the railroad embankment.

Mike sighed, too tired to argue. Dale said, "We've been over this, Jim."

Kevin was thumbing through a Scrooge McDuck comic-something about finding Viking gold to judge from the cover-but he put it down to say, "We're waiting till morning. I'm not going to steal Dad's truck right in front of him. We have to convince him that somebody else took it and sprayed Old Central with gas."

Harlen snorted. "Who? All the suspects are ending up dead. This'11 be the goddamnedist week in the history of Elm Haven, and somebody's gonna figure out that we had something to do with it sooner or later…"

"Not if you keep your big trap shut," said Dale.

"Who's going to make me, Stewart?" sneered Harlen.

The two boys leaned toward each other until Mike pushed them apart." "Cool it.” His voice was very tired.”One thing's for sure, we're not going to sleep apart tonight and let those things pick us off one by one."

"Right," said Harlen, settling back against a huge limb,"let's all get together so they can pick us off in one big gulp."

Mike shook his head. "Two teams. My folks've already said I could stay with Dale and Lawrence tonight. They think I just want to get out of the house because of last night.”

The boys said nothing.

"Harlen, you got it cleared to spend the night at Kev's?"

"Yeah."

"Good. That way we can keep in touch all night with the walkie-talkies."

Dale tore a leaf from a branch and began stripping it into smaller and smaller pieces. "Sounds good. Then we load the tanker with gas in the morning and spray the school. Just after first light, right?"

"Right," said Mike. He turned toward Kevin. "Grum-bacher, you sure you can drive it?"

Kev raised an eyebrow. "I told you I could, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but we don't want any surprises come tomorrow morning."

"No surprises," said Kevin. "My father lets me drive it on back roads every once in a while. I can do the gears. I can reach the pedals. I can get it to the schoolyard."